Field seeds from hybrid seed companies are normally packaged in bags containing a bushel or so of seed. With modern row crop planters having the capability of planting eight to twelve or more rows at a time, vast quantities of seed are consumed in the course of a planting day. As a result, the farmer operating the planter has to interrupt the planting operation frequently in the course of a day to refill the hoppers on the planter. Typically, each individual seed bag is opened and the contents are dumped into the hoppers on the planter. Some efforts have been made to dump a plurality of bags into an enlarged hopper or wagon, and then conveying the seed from the common source to the individual hoppers on the planter. However, this process necessitates the opening of a plurality of relatively small bags of seed.
In recent times, large rectangular containers containing approximately 2,000 pounds of seed have been designed to avoid the problems of having to open a plurality of smaller seed bags. However, these bulk seed containers which are filled by the companies producing the seed present an additional problem of handling, transportation, and unloading. These bulk seed containers normally have an outlet port and a tapered floor within whereby the grain will flow by gravity out of tile outlet port when the outlet port is opened.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a method and means for filling the hoppers of seed planters from the bulk seed containers.
A further object of this invention is to facilitate the transportation of the bulk seed containers from a delivery location out to the field where the planter is located.
A further object of this invention is to provide a vehicle for transporting the bulk seed containers, and for unloading the seed containers into the hoppers of the planter after the vehicle has been moved to the field location where the planter is situated.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a vehicle for filling the hoppers of field planters from bulk containers wherein the hoppers of the planters can be easily filled from the bulk containers without having to move the vehicle supporting the bulk containers each time a different hopper is filled.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.